Spotlight On: Mishka Zakharin #ASOT2014

Not the latest—but (as far as I’m concerned) the greatest: ‘The Green Lamp’. An anthology of humorous fiction and poetry.

Quick description of it.

‘The Green Lamp’ is a collection of novellas, plays, stories, and poetry that would probably be most easily described as “Americanized Russian literature.” Reflective of Russian lit. in either content, tone, or style, it includes parodies of Tolstoy’s ‘Anna Karenina’ and Dostoyevsky’s ‘Crime and Punishment’, as well as works influenced by other greats such as Chekhov, Pushkin, Bulgakov, and Mayakovsky… but, if you are unfamiliar with the sources from which it sprang, ‘The Green Lamp’ also stands on its own as a mad mêlée of inanely absurd humor.

Something unique about it.

Everything in it is reflective of or inspired by Russian literature—especially Nineteenth and early Twentieth Century.

Mishka Zakharin (despite his Russified name) is a native of Wisconsin—where his existence yet lingers lackidaisically along… He earned a BA (since he already had enough ‘BS’) in English from UW-Whitewater, graduating Magna Cum Laude (or Madame Cum Loudly~), in 1992. He has since published more than 20 anthologies of poetry, prose, and miscellaneous ramblings, as well as numerous eBooks. In 2013 Mishka finished his third novel, entitled “Natalya’s Tale” (and which will presumably be available—someday!), provoking his blithely muttered comment, “Now mayhap I’ll go back and finish the first two…”

Influences in Mishka’s writing include the greats of 19th Century Russian literature, Shakespeare, Marx (specifically Groucho), Jack Kerouac, Pablo Neruda, Steve Martin, and various shades of mind altering perceptions—such as vodka or love or vodka or the like…